is a great soldier; and by the very greatness of his martial fame, has
been enabled to carry certain political questions which, proposed by a
lesser genius, had been scouted by the party otherwise irresistibly
compelled to admit them. (Imagine, for instance, the Marquis of
Londonderry handling Catholic Emancipation.) Nevertheless, should "The
follies of the Wise"--a chronicle much wanted--be ever collected for the
world, his Grace of Wellington will certainly shine as a conspicuous
contributor. In the name of famine, what could have induced his Grace to
insult the misery at this moment, eating the hearts of thousands of
Englishmen? For, within these few days, the Victor of Waterloo expressed
his conviction that England was the only country in which "_the poor man,
if only sober and industrious_, WAS QUITE CERTAIN _of acquiring a
competency!_" And it is this man, imbued with this opinion, who is to be
hailed as the presiding wisdom--the great moral strength--the healing
humanity of the Tory Cabinet. If rags and starvation put up their prayer
to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered by the Duke of
Wellington? "YE ARE DRUNKEN AND LAZY!"

If on the night of the 24th of August--the memorable night on which this
heartless insult was thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands--the
ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws,--the spectres of the wretches who
had been ground out of life by the infamy of Tory taxation, could have
been permitted to lift the bed-curtains of Apsley-House,--his Grace the
Duke of Wellington would have been scared by even a greater majority than
ultimately awaits his fellowship in the present Cabinet. Still we can only
visit upon the Duke the censure of ignorance. "He knows not what he says."
If it be his belief that England suffers only because she is drunken and
idle, he knows no more of England than the Icelander in his sledge: if, on
the other hand, he used the libel as a party warfare, he is still one of
the "old set,"--and his "crowning carnage, Waterloo," with all its